There is a clear need for ICT professionals to supplement their academic education through continuing professional development that focuses on a selection of current and emerging software technologies and tools.
The demand for experts in cutting-edge software technologies is driven by the ICT industry and local companies sporadically complain having to train fresh university graduates in specific technologies that are used within their organisation.
Electronic services are catching up as more and more people discover the convenience of procuring the goods and services they need from the comfort of their home at any time of the day. Electronic banking and e-commerce are achieving significant growth as service providers invest in making their online service more secure and easy to use.
One notable exception in the success story is the take-up of e-government services by the majority of people who actually need these services.
Malta has just been reconfirmed as leader in the delivery and performance of eGovernment services amongst 33 countries (28 European Union member states together with Iceland, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey). The results were published in the eGovernment Benchmark Report 2015 issued earlier today by the European Commission.
The benchmarking study carried out by Capgemini, IDC, Sogeti and the Politecnico di Milano measures four top-level indicators as well as compares the performance of eGovernment services between the participating countries. As in last year, Malta has again attained an exceptional result by leading in all the top-level indicators and ranking first in the overall results.
Read more: Malta reconfirmed as leader in eGovernment services, MITA lauds ‘excellent’ results
The ESF-funded project Public Services Online came to an end with a closing seminar addressing citizens, public officials and businesses. During the seminar, addressed by Principal Permanent Secretary Mario Cutajar, Parliamentary Secretary for Competitiveness and Economic Growth José Herrera and MITA’s Executive Chairman Tony Sultana, achieved results and policy guidelines were presented to guide Government in the development of future eGovernment services thus ensuring that eServices are made easy, efficient and convenient.
The results of the research study on the public’s opinion on the use of public services online shows that the majority of respondents (56%) make use of traditional government services while 28% make exclusive use of eGovernment services. 81% of the public are interested to learn more about public services offered online and 63% actually think that there should be more awareness campaigns.
Read more: MT: 28% of the public make exclusive use of eGovernment services – Study
Anyone who has ever shopped online, used internet banking or simply used social networking websites may have noticed a little padlock icon next to the site's URL, or the https:// prefix highlighting that the website is secure. But not all secure websites offer the same protection.
What the 'https' implies is that the http protocol - the foundation for data communication over the internet - is layered over a secure protocol: traditionally the secure sockets layer (SSL), but this has since been superseded by the transport layer security (TLS) protocol.
Read more: MT: How secure is a secure website?: Maltapark trumps most banks, eGovernment gets an F